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Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan | Pajiba - Scathing Reviews for Bitchy People

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Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

Cannonball Read / Brian Prisco

Book Reviews | May 21, 2009 | Comments (22)

Yea, verily, I have completed a mighty task. Slowly, did I trek through this hearty banquet of a novel, taking nearly a month and a half to complete it as I journeyed through other novels along the way. And forsooth, would I be loathe to explain my feelings on Book 6 of a 12 or potentially 14 book series, each of which are clocking in at 1000 pages a clip. I will say that once again, the Wheel of Time is like watching most long running television dramas. It’s a huge sprawling work, and so we’re weaving around through tons and tons of characters, a huge cast, and so he touches on them here or there. It staggers around for a long stretch of time, and then hits you with all the action in the finale. And Lord of Chaos gets ugly towards the end.

But what this marks is a close to a huge chapter of the Cannonball Read. Once I started taking recommendations, I was bombarded with fantasy. Most of this was my own doing, taking public my wading through of Jordan’s massivepiece, and thus people were quick to belittle Jordan (alright, well, me too) and hurl huge selections at me. I snagged as many starters as I could.

Thus, I read the first two Song of Ice and Fire, The Name of the Wind by Rothfuss — the first Kingkiller; the first First Law book by Joe Abercrombie, the first Robin Hobb, the first two Temeraire, and the first half of the Wheel of Time. My Kindle is fit to burst with the followups to most of these, as well as the first few of the Discworld novels, the Arabesk series, and even more fantasy that I found scouring the interwebs for the others.

But alas, with the Lord of Chaos closed, I look to my final fifteen books as fantasy free. (Unless you count Sookie Stackhouse - got one more of those up my sleeve). No more will dragons or dwarves or assassins or Athan’Miere or orcs or oliphaunts cross my eyes until I put a close on this contest. I thank you for your suggestions on fantasy, and I only hope my own little quest and the cannonade of recs were picked up by others. Hopefully a few more of you will crack the nerdlinger crease and check out a few sword and sorcery pieces.

Either way, onwards and upwards into the classics. Hopefully the lingering memory of saidan will get me through Dosteofvsky and Steinbeck. Tally ho!

This review is part of the Cannonball Read series. For more of Prisco’s reviews, check out his blog, The Gospel According to Prisco.


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Comments

This is a terrible thing to say but, now that Jordan is dead, I'm really hoping the series will wrap up. I've spent almost fifteen years reading The Wheel of Time and I think that is enough. However, at this point, I feel as though I have to finish the series else I am a failure. Through the last three I kept hoping something was going to actually happen.

Authors, Please don't take 3-5 years between releases in a series (I'm looking at you Martin) it makes me stabby.

Jordan, I wish I knew how to quit you.

Posted by: admin at May 21, 2009 9:47 AM

admin,
Apparently Sanderson is releasing the 12th book in the fall and zipping through the last 2 as quickly as possible. And I'm with you on Martin. The books are amazing but he's a lazy fucker.
I've been reading The WOT series for decades and, despite reading each novel twice, can't remember exactly what goes on in each one. It's all a blur. Not sure how I feel about that.

Posted by: Kballs at May 21, 2009 10:14 AM

"Jordan, I wish I knew how to quit you."

Funny you should say that. I was just thinking that book cover looks like the Lord of Brokeback, not the Lord of Chaos. I would never put the Lord of Chaos in a pair of Dickies and a pirate shirt.

Posted by: logar at May 21, 2009 10:17 AM

Good to know Kballs. I agree on the re-reads, I've been through each of them three times and I can remember all the high points, but when you have to re-read the book previous just to remember where you left off, somethings not right.

Posted by: admin at May 21, 2009 10:48 AM

I love these books, but didn't Robert Jordan die? Effectively ending any potential for concluding this series? If I'm misinformed I'm going to fail out of college because that means I have to reread all these damn books again instead of writing my last 3 term papers... ruh-roh

Posted by: Braski at May 21, 2009 10:56 AM

Kballs,
The problem is there's basically nothing to remember from the mid-series books. 500 pages of recap as he touches base with each storyline, another couple hundred of Rand being emo, a battle shoehorned in at the end. Jordan was treading water in these books, it's almost like he was really working on 'How to sell a million copies despite having extreme writer's block'

Posted by: bob-o at May 21, 2009 11:00 AM

Braski,
Jordan died but they hired Brandon Sanderson to finish off the series. He's already proved to be a worthy successor since the concluding volume is now planned as a concluding trilogy. It's just how Jordan would've done it himself.

Posted by: bob-o at May 21, 2009 11:05 AM

Holy Cow. This is what I'm reading right now. A friend and I are reading through these books together in a sort of tiny book club fashion. She finished this book before I could start it and hated it. She called it "the literary equivalent of having thumb tacks under your fingernails." I think it's only the very low expectation she set for me that's caused me to OK reading this book. It's not as bad as it could have been. At the same time, after hearing repeatedly how unmemorable this part of the series is, I can only hope that it will pick back up towards the end again.

Posted by: brenia at May 21, 2009 11:13 AM

I'm tempted to write this post in the style of RJ, but I don't feel I'm up to the task of filling this with a 2 page description of clouds or how men are simpletons and the women are all screaming shrews.

I've read thru them all. You should do yourself a favor and skip book 7 (nothing happens. Not a goddamned thing. If you want the high points, read the wikipedia article) and Book 10.

Posted by: alphawhiskey at May 21, 2009 12:17 PM

Lord Of Chaos was the last of these that I enjoyed. It went downhill fast after that, and I gave up three books later. If I see anyone embarking on The Wheel Of Time at an airport, I feel compelled to slap the book out of their hands and tell them to go back.

That said, the climax of Lord Of Chaos ROCKED.

Posted by: DarthCorleone at May 21, 2009 1:00 PM

That said, the climax of Lord Of Chaos ROCKED.

You said it, homey. Though I gave up on even attempting to finish reading the series long ago, I don't regard it as a complete waste of time, because "Kneel, or you will be knelt" was just so friggin' awesome.

Posted by: Todd at May 21, 2009 1:24 PM

I'm so glad I never got into this series. I just start to imagine what it would be like if Stephen King had died before finishing Dark Tower, and I start shaking in fear. So, glad I'm not there.

Also, when I looked at the picture my first thought was "Eee! Prisco read a bodice-ripper! this is gonna be awesome!". But alas, it was not to be.

Posted by: figgy at May 21, 2009 1:56 PM

I'm on book 4 now. For the fifth time.

Yeah, I'm one of those.

*hangs head in shame*

Posted by: boo at May 21, 2009 2:53 PM

eh, brenia. get online!
i was hoping my hatred would make things more bearable for you, and i'm glad you didn't skip it. i can't be alone in the suffering. you prolly shouldn't read anymore of my rant.

indeed homey, the climax was awesome... but it was a shame jordan waited until the very last chapter of a very long book to get to it. i mean, yeah the climax needs to be at the end of the book but out of that monster it could have been the last quarter. the pacing... was so... bad. i tried so hard to like it, i tried to concentrate on the characters and their retread traits. i read other books to break it up. but i agree with bob-o and i still believe this book to be tacks under nails. really all that buildup for being in a box and the shortest epic battle ever written? and also kind of like the worst most boring and tedious sex imaginable after which the other grunts and falls asleep on top of you in a suffocating fashion.

it also killed fantasy for me, i'm taking a long break from this sort of thing. i originally thought a month was enough but now i'm thinking three. but i can't quit the series, so hopefully it picks back up sometime.

>.o oops, got a little carried away there...

Posted by: yeratomato at May 21, 2009 2:57 PM

boo, you shall not hang your head. I re-read all my books and I refuse to hang anything. Except plates, I love me some collectors plates.

Posted by: admin at May 21, 2009 3:17 PM

If you like a book why wouldn't you reread it? It's not any different from watching reruns of a favorite show. I'll still pull the old Heinlein books off the shelf when I'm bored, they're like old friends.

Posted by: bob-o at May 21, 2009 4:11 PM

Boo and admin, I always tell people that I never buy books to read them only once. In light of that ALL my books have been re-read at least twice.
All except for the ones which were bad buys and end up in a book sale at a second hand book store.

As for Jordan, I was as deep into that series as anyone could get, however, after several years of dragging the blasted series out Jordan lost my affection. I stopped at book 9...or 10 it's been so long I can't remember.

Posted by: Four Eyes at May 21, 2009 4:12 PM

I've read the entire series at least 3 times, and some of my favourites in the series upwards of 4 or 5 times. I don't really understand people's complaints about the series, but then I have an unhealthy love of slow pacing and chapters of exposition.
I actually really love the middle part of the series because it's when he really takes the time to expand the world and get down into the minutiae of it. The plot and characters are secondary to that for me.

Posted by: Chugga at May 21, 2009 11:51 PM

It's sad honestly, because things started to fall apart after this one, and got really, really bad in 8 and 9. The last book Jordan managed to finish before kicking it, however, showed a bit of self-awareness. Like he finally realized that his opus had overtaken him. Too bad he didn't get a chance to finish it.

The completionist in me will read the final book(s), but it won't be the same.

Posted by: Smokin at May 22, 2009 3:10 AM

Never heard of this book. I thought, based on the book's title and cover, that this was about Michael Flatley.

Posted by: Sara at May 22, 2009 5:03 AM

It doesn't really bother me that Martin takes so long to produce books, considering that they're so great. Besides, since when did artists owe their admirers anything other than staying true to their work?

Besides, he wrote Beauty and the Beast. That's enough to give him a free pass in my book, at least until he drowns a bag of kittens.

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